This ultimate portable CD player brings back everything we love, and more

[Shawn Knight]

Editor's take: Once upon a time, portable CD players were among the coolest gadgets you could own. Then the iPod arrived, ushering in the era of digital music. Today, streaming and smartphones dominate the scene. But what if you're not sold on digital music and miss the experience of physical media? Fret not, as Chinese high-fidelity audio company Shanling's latest offering could be what you've been missing.

The EC Zero AKM Portable CD Player is, at its heart, a portable optical disc player. It features an AKM AK4493S DAC for smooth and natural sound that supports PCM 768kHz / DSD512, as well as a pair of SGM8262 amplifiers. Shanling went with an active magnetic design that continuously adjusts the position and pressure on the disc to reduce unwanted vibrations and skipping.

The unit supports wireless Bluetooth playback, but there are also a pair of audio jacks – 3.5mm and 4.4mm – should you prefer a corded option.

The built-in 5,500mAh battery is good for up to 10 hours of wired headphone playback or up to 18 hours when using Bluetooth. Optionally, you can connect a USB-C power adapter for extended listening sessions with increased power output.

Another nifty feature is the ability to rip CDs directly from the player. Simply connect it to a computer via USB-C cable, press record in the audio software, and the rip will initiate in real time (for example, a 74-minute-long album will take 74 minutes to rip).

The player is constructed using a single metal chassis, and has a tempered glass lid. You also get physical buttons, and even a lockout to prevent accidental button presses while on the go. An unobtrusive 1.68-inch LCD provides album and playback information.

Pricing is set at $329.99 directly from Amazon, and the first wave of deliveries are set to go out later this month. Diehard audiophiles and those that simply yearn for yesteryear might have a hard time passing this one up, especially those with a large CD collection and few modern solutions for portable playback.

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This ultimate portable CD player brings back everything we love, and more

 

[OortCloud]

I had a Sony Diskman way back in the day. It got through batteries faster than I could afford, so it went in a cupboard and the Walkman made a reappearance.

 

[NumberNine]

Or just use a FLAC playback device, also made by shanling and other companies.

You're not gonna miss the disc skipping, disc swapping, disc scratching, and even if you rip the CDs, the best you could possibly have is CD quality sound in a world of FLAC and vinyl.

Not only is the device already obsolete, but so is the quality of the audio source.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Garbage… love that people will charge hundreds of dollars to bank on nostalgia…

As the previous poster stated, this doesn’t give you better quality - just “CD sound”… your phone will play better quality music - and hold more than 700mb of it!

It’s one thing to buy an LP player - this is just inane.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I loved my discman back in the 90s. I loved my CD player in my car that I got in the late 90s and up to my current 2016 car that surprisingly came with one.

I don't love the fact that you can't really buy much in terms of music on CDs anymore and to be honest, I don't really care about new bands and their albums so I'm not in the market to buy CDs. What CDs I still have, most work without issues (some have skips due to scratches) and I've just gone a head and copied them digitally. I put the music on a thumb drive and I can now easily navigate to whatever artists/song I want to hear and not have to flip threw my 200 CD book to find something, swap out the CDs and try to find what I want to hear.

Also, I mostly listen to the radio now and 90% of the time if there is nothing on the radio I want to hear I just turn it off and drive in silence. The other 10% of the time is when I might play something off my thumb drive.

While this CD player is intriguing and it does hit home in the nostalgia department, being $350 (after tax) just isn't something that screams "Buy me!". I haven't purchased a music album on CD since maybe 2005 and with how physical media has sadly been phased out more and more every year there really isn't a reason to purchase something like this.

 

[VitalyT]

This product is to play on your nostalgia, and not one to make sense.

 

[stewi0001]

Nostalgia pricing included! for when CD players first came out.

 

[passwordistaco]

I'm good. I still have my 6+1 cd changer and my portable CD player with dock for power and RCA out.

 

[CrisisDog]

Yaaay, but a no for me. If I’m listening to CDs, it’s going to be on my stereo receiver with a five disc carousel. If I decide to go retro-portable, that’s where my minidisc player comes in. Carrying around a bunch of CDs isn’t a thing any more, simply due to the size.

 

[airbornex]

Imagine telling someone in 2002 that in 2025, people would be willingly paying $330 for a Discman because it has high-res audio, a glass lid, and Bluetooth. We’ve gone full circle—and somehow leveled up.

 

[TheBigT42]

"But what if you're not sold on digital music and miss the experience of physical media?"

I got news for you. CDs ARE DIGITAL!

 

[TheBigT42]

"Another nifty feature is the ability to rip CDs directly from the player. Simply connect it to a computer via USB-C cable, press record in the audio software, and the rip will initiate in real time (for example, a 74-minute-long album will take 74 minutes to rip"

Anyone with a $20 USB DVD drive can rip an audio CD in less than a minute using free and open source software.

https://www.freac.org/

 

[Underdog]

I guess the "experts" here know something that the boys at Shanling haven't noticed when they spent money designing their latest device. Everyone here likes tiny new gadgets and retro is so uncool. The rest of the world should wake up and smell the future. Out with the old and in with the new. Keep spending your cash on the latest thing even if it doesn't really satisfy. Resistance is futile.